Online Political Activism in Syria: Sentiment Analysis of Social Media

Abstract

Unlike other Arab countries that witnessed swift political changes during the Arab Spring, the conflict in Syria is still unfolding. Sunni rebels formed the Free Syrian Army and other armed factions to fight the Alawite regime of Bashar Assad. However, it seems that the conflict is more recently defined as a civil war between the country’s two main sects rather than a revolution against Assad’s totalitarian rule. This study analyzes a popular Facebook page that is created by the Syrian opposition group that is called “The Syrian Revolution 2011 against Bashar Assad” (https://ar-ar.facebook.com/Syrian.Revolution). Using a webometric tool, a total of 114,437 posts and comments are retrieved and analyzed using a computer software that is suitable for big data analysis in order to understand the sentiments associated with this kind of online activism.

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